Damian Thompson is Editor of Telegraph Blogs and a columnist for the Daily Telegraph. He was once described by The Church Times as a "blood-crazed ferret". He is on Twitter as HolySmoke. His latest book is The Fix: How addiction is taking over your world. He also writes about classical music for The Spectator.

Are you a gas engineer who yearns to slip into a cocktail frock? Help is at hand…

We learnt this week about the transvestite five-year-old boy who’s had a diagnosis of “gender identity dysphoria” slapped on him, prompting his primary school to install unisex lavatories. But have you ever considered the plight of a gas engineer who, after servicing your boiler, is itching to get home so he can slip into a frock? Is his industry sufficiently sensitive to men who dress as women or, indeed, have had the chop? Somebody convene a gasmen’s diversity workshop immediately!

Oh, wait. Somebody has. The Institute of Gas Engineers and Managers held a day-long workshop last month, entitled “Breaking Down the Barriers”. The afternoon session included “Transgender equality at work – your questions answered”, followed by “Changing the culture: Tools to challenge inappropriate remarks”.

We associate jargon-spouting, money-wasting social engineering with the public sector, where it thrives. But the virus long ago made the leap to the supposedly productive parts of our economy, where it gorges on private cash. Thanks to US business management doctrine and European nosey-parker social democracy, Britain’s public and private sectors share the same underlying culture. It’s risk-averse, sanctimonious and gullible, and shovels unimaginable sums of money into the bank accounts of politically correct shysters.

Let’s say you’re a local authority who wants to recruit “cycle advisers” to nag people to join the bicycling cult that’s polluting our cities with its self-righteousness. You go to a private firm that rents out cycling bores. Or, depending on your PC requirements, professional – and expensive – bores in the fields of gender equality, health and safety, race and the environment (ie, climate-change propaganda).

I’m trying to think of an institution in Britain that isn’t terrified of being accused of a thought crime, either in the courts or ­– even worse – when their chief executive runs into Fiona Millar or Stephen Fry at a drinks party.

Look what happened when Tesco heard the first liberal squeaks over the Government’s work experience scheme. One tweet from Polly Toynbee describing it as slave labour, and the supermarket was falling over itself to throw money at its volunteers. Likewise many other companies. They exhibited all the bravery of the “emergency services” which didn’t try to rescue a man drowning in three feet of water lest they breach safety rules.

No doubt David Cameron is as appalled as everyone else by that. And I’m sure he’s irritated by the high street firms that jumped ship from the workfare experiment rather than incur the disapproval of Newsnight. I’m even prepared to bet that his brow furrowed when he read about the idiocy of council prayers being banned.

But Dave isn’t a culture warrior. He’s an appeaser. He’s done nothing to challenge the smug political, environmental and therapeutic pieties that lard press releases from government departments, retailers, councils, charities and the Churches. (If you want to see “best practice” culture at its most abject, visit any office run by the Catholic bishops of England and Wales.)

There are one or two resistance fighters in the Government: Michael Gove, obviously, and Eric Pickles – plus (surprisingly) Steve Hilton, who once suggested that EU directives should be tossed in the bin. But Cameron reminds me of Edward Heath with better vowels, kowtowing to the metropolitan elite in the way that his predecessor did to the trade unions. I wonder if that analogy has occurred to Dave – and, if so, whether he remembers what the unions ended up doing to Ted.

Here is the BBC news from the TUC

Two items back to back on the Radio 4 news yesterday morning: one blaming the plight of the children of failed asylum seekers on “restriction of benefits”, the other revealing that people in their late fifties are following the example of younger colleagues and working longer hours instead of clocking off as soon as possible. The source for the first story was a charity; for the second, the TUC. Since the BBC is facing cuts, perhaps it should allow Left-leaning charities/pressure groups/trade unions to email press releases straight to the newsreader. Then journalists wouldn’t have to go through the charade of “impartial” reporting at licence-payers’ expense.

Hunt tries so hard to be hip

Do you remember the brushed-forward Tintin quiff worn by groovy young hipsters in the Cool Britannia years? Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt certainly does, because that’s precisely the look he went for when he was denouncing racism and homophobia in football this week. All he needed was a man-bag worn satchel-style and he could have been a 45-year-old Stonewall activist getting down with the kids in Old Compton Street. I’m sorry to say that one of my friends rang me up to draw my attention to it, hooting with laughter.

Not to be rude, Secretary of State, but this is not the right look for you. Why don’t you ask Michael Fabricant MP if you can borrow one of his Dame Edna syrups until the cut grows out?

Lefties love to play 'doctors’

I thought the menagerie of Dave ’n’ Deirdre Sparts was full at the moment, what with Johann, Laurie, Seumas and Owen droning away. But now I discover Dr Eoin Clarke, who explodes with fury at the Government’s NHS plans on a daily basis. His blog, The Green Benches, is striking not just for its crossness but its illiteracy, which borders on the surreal: “The nepotism that will come to dominate our health service will be the stuff of the Catholic Church medieval Europe [sic].”

OK, so perhaps it’s unfair to expect tidy prose from a hard-pressed NHS doctor. But it turns out that Eoin is only “Dr” thanks to a PhD thesis on Irish women’s history from Queen’s University Belfast. I bet that’s a grisly read, particularly if it adopts the mangled syntax of his blog.

Incidentally, why do Lefties with PhDs set such store by being called “doctor”? (Dr John Reid, Dr Vince Cable, Dr Jack Cunningham, etc.) Eoin even has it in his Twitter handle. It’s quite sweet, really.

New listeners should start here…

Lots of people have written to say that, like me, they’re appalled by British ignorance of classical music. One reader asks if there’s a single piece I can recommend to adults who don’t know where to start. Definitely. Go for Schubert’s final piano sonata, in B flat, D960. It launches straight in to one of the loveliest melodies he ever wrote – and that’s saying something. The mood of every movement is pitched between restlessness and serenity: his last thoughts, alas. You have to wonder what the Almighty was playing at when he took Schubert from us at 31, just weeks after he had scaled new heights of sublimity. And a recording? By a nose, Stephen Kovacevich on EMI.